Left I on the News

A leftwing view of the day's news and the way it's presented in the media

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Lebanon: the U.S. role widens

A few days ago I likened the U.S. role in blocking international efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Lebanon to the role of a cyclist in the Tour de France, blocking the pack from chasing while their teammate was up the road on a breakaway. But now we've had the U.S. rushing $210 million worth of aviation fuel to Israel, and today we learn of this obscenity:

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

So now we've got the U.S. as the team manager, riding up next to the leader in the breakway and passing food and fuel out the window. Unfortunately that's not Power Bars and Gatorade it's handing out, it's instruments of death.

I included the second paragraph in that excerpt because of the almost comical use of the word "appearance" by the New York Times. Evidently to the Times, that famous picture of a Vietnamese policeman blowing out the brains of a captured Vietcong just gives the "appearance" of murder. And the picture at right, showing the mass grave of 72 87 [CNN update Saturday morning] of the victims of the massacre of Tyre, just gives the "appearance" of a massacre. More victims, by the way, likely remain in the rubble, but there isn't enough safety or enough people or equipment to find out. And yes, that word "massacre" is my addition; a special Left I award to anyone who can find it in the American corporate media. Don't waste too much time. But make no mistake about it -- a "massacre" it was (and is).

If the U.S. were just out blocking the passage of toothless U.N. ceasefire resolutions, you could ask the question "why do 'they' hate us?" But with the U.S. actively sending fuel and missiles to Israel in the midst of a shooting war, a war producing hundreds of victims like the ones in the picture at right, we've moved way beyond that. The United States is now a legitimate military target in that war. That includes factories making the missiles or any parts or materials that go into them, refineries making aviation fuel, and trucks and railroads and ports and ships and planes being used to transport any of those things, not to mention any of the people involved in those activities. The U.S. hasn't actually "declared war" for 50 years, but make no mistake about it -- it has now declared war against the people of Lebanon every bit as much as it did against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Palestine, and anyplace else they've been "personally" involved in bombing the population into submission.